LIFE without Steve Walsh started for Atherton CC with the visit of Adlington to Higham Park for the opening Bolton Association match of the season.

The difference was hardly noticable as new skipper Rob Clews marshalled his troops superbly to engineer the demolition of the visitors and steer his side to a nine wicket victory.

Chief demolition man was pro Greg Dimery who opened the bowling from the football ground end. He ripped into the Adlington top order to take the first four wickets to fall at a personal cost of just 10 runs.

With opening partner Ian Nuttall keeping it tight at the other end and Paul Walsh executing the run out of Mathew Taylor with a direct hit from mid-wicket, the visitors found themselves at 16-5 in the 13th over.

A brief partnership of 39 between Andrew and Mark Robinson, together with a last wicket flurry of 23 from Duncan McNally and skipper Eddie Haddon, prolonged the innings. But with Nuttall, Dave Charlson and David Baines taking a wicket apiece and Dimery a further two, Adlington were all out for 97 in the 36th over, Dimery's haul being 6-21 from 13 overs.

The home side's reply suffered an early setback when Philip West, opening the innings with Charlson, was out first ball. That was the end of Adlington's hopes as Charlson and Dimery, undefeated on 39 and 53 respectively, saw Atherton to a maximum 20 points with 30 overs to spare.

On Sunday Atherton travelled to Alderley Edge to play the Cheshire County Premier League side in the first round of the National KO competition.

The side was greatly weakened by the unavailability of West, Charlson and Baines, together with the ineligibility of Dimery.

Even so things looked decidedly rosy for Atherton as with Nuttall bowling superbly they reduced the Cheshire side to 106-6 in the 25th over.

However, that was the last of their success as an unbroken seventh wicket stand of 132 by Mark Currie and Marc Chan took the home side to 238. Nuttall finished with 3-44 from nine.

When the visitors batted they kept up with the required rate and after 30 overs the scores were identical. But they could not sustain the pace and eventually fell 50 runs short.

There were creditable performances from David Marsh 26, Paul Walsh 39 and Paul Brown 35. There was also a late flourish from Paul McLoughlin 25, and Michael Tomlinson 17.

This Saturday Atherton travel to Edgworth for a league fixture.